The Body Book: The Law of Hunger, the Science of Strength, and Other Ways to Love Your Amazing Body

301 Pages·2013·2.99 MB·English

by  Cameron Diaz

COLLAGE OF WOMEN

DEDICATION
Dedicated to your body.
CONTENTS
Collage of Women
Dedication

INTRODUCTION: Knowledge Is Power
PART ONE - NUTRITION: Love Your Hunger
Chapter 1 - You Are What You Eat
Chapter 2 - Food, Glorious Food!
Chapter 3 - Hunter, Gatherer, Drive-Thru-er
Chapter 4 - How to Love Your Hunger
Chapter 5 - Eating the Sun
Chapter 6 - Complex Carbs Are Energy
Chapter 7 - Sugar Is Not a Nutrient
Chapter 8 - Protein Is Strength
Chapter 9 - Fat Is Essential
Chapter 10 - Eating the Stars
Chapter 11 - Water Is Life
Chapter 12 - The Digestion Chapter
Chapter 13 - Say Hello to Your Little Friends
PART TWO - FITNESS: The Body Wants to Be Strong
Chapter 14 - The Body Wants to Be Strong
Chapter 15 - The Magic of Movement
Chapter 16 - Energy In, Energy Out
Chapter 17 - Oxygen Is Energy
Chapter 18 - Structural Support
Chapter 19 - Muscle Woman
Chapter 20 - The Basics of Training
Chapter 21 - Your Lady Body
Chapter 22 - The ABC’s of Zzzz’s
PART THREE - MIND: You’ve Got This
Chapter 23 - You’ve Got This
Chapter 24 - The State of Being Connected
Chapter 25 - Decoding the Modern Appetite
Chapter 26 - Unpacking Your Habits
Chapter 27 - Nothing’s for Free
Chapter 28 - Planning for Your Nutrition
Chapter 29 - Finding Your Inner Athlete
CONCLUSION: Now You Really Got This
Acknowledgments
Notes
Supplementary Reading List
Index

About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Hello, Lady!
Thank you for picking up this book. Before we launch into Chapter 1, I want to
tell you why I wrote it, what it means to me, and what I hope it will mean to you.
As human beings, when we have experiences that bring us great joy and
fulfillment, all we want is to share that excitement with others. Like when you
eat something incredibly delicious and immediately turn to the person next to
you and say, “Taste this!” Or when you hear a really amazing song and then
download it for a friend because you can’t wait for her to hear. Or when you
learn a piece of information that just really blows your mind, something that
feels so big and important that you want to share it with everyone you can find!
That’s how I feel about this book. Everything in these pages is information
that I use to live my life, information that makes me feel so excited and joyous
that I just had to share it with you. That’s why I’ve written it—because
educating yourself about your body is one of the most important things that you
can do. As you read through these pages, you’re going to learn about nutrition
and how to feed yourself deliciously and nutritiously. You’re going to learn
about fitness and how your body is affected by movement. You’re going to learn
about your mind, so that you can become self-aware and find your inner
discipline. Because nutrition and fitness and awareness and discipline are not
just words: they are tools. They are power. They are ways to care for yourself
that empower you to be stronger, smarter, more confident, and truer to yourself.
In the subtitle of this book are the words “Your Amazing Body.” I believe
just that: your body is amazing. Right now, whatever shape you are in, your
body is an amazing machine that does so many cool things, from using the air in
our environment to keep your brain alive to turning a bowl of cereal into an
explosion of energy that allows you to run down the street to catch the bus. And
knowing how to take care of that body is the most important information you can
ever learn. Ever.
Educating yourself about your body is one of the most important things
that you can do. Because nutrition and fitness and awareness and
discipline are not just words: they are tools.
Because your amazing body is the only body that you will ever have. The
same body you’ve had since you were a baby is the body you will inhabit when
you are seventy-five years old. And along the way, yes, it has changed, and it
will continue to change—but it is still yours. No matter what shape it is, how
much you love or hate it, whether it feels tired and worn down or lively and
invigorated, your body is the most precious thing you have.
Your body is your past, present, and future. It carries the memory of your
ancestors, because you are made up of the genes given to you by your parents
and their parents before them. It is the culmination of everything you have ever
eaten, all the physical activity that you did or didn’t do, all the efforts that
you’ve made to understand and take care of it. And how well you care for it will
determine how well you are able to live your life. So whether you wish you had
longer legs or smaller hips, bigger boobs or less pointy ears, this book is for you.
It’s a guide to accepting what you have and loving it with everything you’ve got,
to appreciating how incredible this physical vehicle is. It’s a guide to
maximizing your strength and endurance so that your body can take you
everywhere you want to go in life: to all of your success, to the love of your life,
to your passions and adventures. The body that you have is the body that will
literally carry you there. So if you want to get to all of those wonderful
destinations, you have to build the strongest, most capable, most powerful body
that you can. You must learn to live well in your uniquely beautiful body.
But you can’t do that if you don’t know how. Unfortunately, as women, we
are constantly being pressured about being more beautiful, about being thinner,
about looking younger, or sexier, or blonder or more brunette. As women in
today’s society, we are encouraged to compare ourselves to other women when
what we need to do is focus on our own strengths, our own capabilities, our own
beauty.
That’s why I wrote this book: so that together, we can learn the science
behind the words and have the power that comes with knowing the truth about
our bodies instead of absorbing the bias and misinformation that surround us.
I’m not a scientist. I’m not a doctor. What I am is a woman who has spent the
past fifteen years learning about what my body is capable of, and it has been the
most rewarding experience of my life. Everything that I have, everything that I
am, relates to my knowledge about my body. And I want you to have the same
thing. I want you to know yourself, your power. I want you to be the most
powerful, capable, confident woman that you can be. I want you to know what it
feels like to have a relationship with your body, to feel connected to it. I want
you to know the true joy of living in a body that is yours and yours alone, of
knowing how incredible it feels to nourish yourself with good food, to move and
sweat, to truly care for your health. Because once you posses that knowledge and
are living in the body that you are meant to be in, you will find that your energy
is boundless and that you can see and experience the world in a way that you
couldn’t before. And you will start to be able to use your energy in ways that
you’d never even thought of before, just because you were too focused on what
you thought you didn’t have or couldn’t do.
Because I want all of this for YOU, I spoke to people who are experts in
medicine, nutrition, fitness, science, health, and psychology, people who have
dedicated their lives and careers to understanding and helping the human body